NEWS
Digital Drives the Industry
A Report From DV Expo West
Story and Photos by Scott Janush
 AJA Booth. |
Digital Video Expo West was held in the South Hall at the Los Angeles Convention Center, December 7-10, 2004 and included a four-day conference, a three-day expo and a three-day film festival.
Billing itself as “The Leading Professional Video Conference and Exposition,”
the Expo itself is an offshoot of DV Magazine, which is a tremendous asset
to the future of post-production.
www.dv.com
In many ways, DV Expo is a reflection of the technology that appears to be driving the industry in terms of both cost and availability to the masses. The proliferation of DV and its variants as acceptable acquisition and post-production formats is now strong enough to warrant two shows per year dedicated to the format and ancillary markets.
This show’s keynote address was presented by editor Walter Murch, ACE, who has become possibly the most familiar name associated with the rise of DV-type editing systems and with Final Cut Pro being accepted and proven for use as a feature editorial system.
Overlooking the Expo floor, Sony had a room dedicated to demonstrating the image quality of its new HDV 1080i camera––the HVR-Z1U––which was slated for release in January. The new camera is a “pro version” of the HDR-FX1 camera already on the market and receiving high marks.
The HVR can capture in HDV (High-Definition Video), DVcam and DV formats,
combining 1080i, 60i, 50i, 30, 25 and 24 recording and playback; in other
words, HD and SD (Standard Definition) in one DV format camera. Sony also
has a matching hard disk recorder for the camera, the HVR-M10U VTR. The HVR
has the capability to output HD 1080i downconverted to SD directly.
http://bssc.sel.sony.com/Professional/
 Synthetic Aperture Booth. |
In my opinion, the neatest configuration of equipment for post-production
was a JL Cooper hardware interface that acts as a dedicated front
end for Synthetic Aperture’s Color Finesse color correction
software. For those familiar with the trackball tactile interface
that DaVinci systems feature on their color correction systems, this
provides a similar dedicated palette to the Synthetic Aperture software
that mimics the traditional interface instead of the eternal mousing
that most of us must contend with.
http://www.synthetic-ap.com/products/cf/index.html
http://jlcooper.com/pages/mcsspectrum.html
Avid was showing Xpress Pro HD, with new features including DVCPRO HD. Native
HDV promised in the near future. It offers real-time multi-camera editing,
10-bit capture, playback, editing and effects, as well as DV50 acquisition
over Firewire, mix-and-match HD and SD in the same timeline, also in real
time.
www.avid.com
AJA introduced the Kona 2 capture card, featuring 10- and 12-bit 4:4:4 dual link HD-SDI signal flow. For those working in 4:4:4 and wishing to remain in that color space while working in Final Cut Pro, your ship may have come in––providing you have a storage solution that can keep up.
Kona was also showing the Kona LS capture card, an SD PCI card capable of
capturing 12-bit component, composite, S-Video analog inputs/outputs along
with SDI imputs/outputs. Supporting After Effects, Combustion and Motion,
as well as Final Cut Pro, this card is one more example of the cutthroat nature
of the business at this time as Blackmagic’s Decklink series is forcing
other manufacturers to offer similar options and pricing.
The LS also has a rack mount breakout box for those who swap cables and configurations
often.
www.aja.com
Digital Anarchy introduced a novel approach to stock footage with its Chaos
Stock library. In addition to the final rendered files, it provides all the
elements as well as the After Effects project files used to create the composites.
This gives the user total control over his or her stock footage.
www.digitalanarchy.com
PowerProduction Software was showing Storyboard Artist 4. This pre-visualization
package allows the casual user to pre-visualize sequences using supplied image
libraries of backgrounds as well as characters. You may find yourself doing
more and more of this type of work in the future as more films, unfortunately,
are shot on blue or green screen with the intent to composite later.
www.powerproduction.com
Tired of tapes being stacked up or falling over on shelves? Check out Bryco
products storage solutions.
www.brycoproducts.com
Genarts, Inc. reduced the price on the Sapphire plug-ins collection for Shake
from $2,995 down to $1995.
http://genarts.com/sapphire-shake.html
Shining Technology was showing the CitiDisk DV, a Firewire capture disk that
connects directly to your DV camcorder, eliminating the need to ingest from
tape. Just connect the drive to your editing system and you are ready to start
cutting.
www.shining.com
G-Tech displayed a nice array of hard drives, including the FW400 and 800
in raid configurations and at very reasonable price points. Here is a chance
to support a local vendor, as G-Tech is located in Santa Monica, California.
www.g-technology.com
Now there is finally a product that can actually make you feel less tired at the end of the day! Noren Products was showing the Acoustilock equipment enclosure, the concept of which is to isolate the noisy equipment so that you don’t have to listen to the constant drone of 10,000 rpm drives and fans. This is accomplished by rack mounting the equipment within a specialized enclosure, utilizing highly efficient insulation and cooling technology.
The amazing part is that you don’t really have any idea of how pervasive
and exhausting this type of environmental noise is until you get rid of it.
The solutions are not inexpensive, but do provide sound isolation greater
than 32db (every 10db is half of the volume level). I certainly wish that
some cutting rooms would provide a solution like this.
www.noreenproducts.com
Also lending credence to the importance of the DV format, both MGLA (Motion
Graphics LA) and LAFCPUG (Los Angeles Final Cut Pro User Group) held meetings
at the Convention Center during DV Expo. The MGLA meeting consisted of a panel
discussion by the Broadcast Design Association entitled “The State of
the Industry 2004––Back to Life.” Anyone interested in broadcast
graphics should be familiar with BDA.
www.bda.tv
Next up: Digital Video Expo East will be held at the Javits Convention Center in New York City, July 19 – 21, 2005. Digital Video Expo West will again take place at the Los Angeles Convention Center, December 7-9, 2005.
When he’s not attending trade shows, assistant editor member Scott
Janush is working as the VFX editor on The Legend of Zorro. He can be reached
at sjanush@primenet.net.
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